Private school pupils are increasingly dominating positions of wealth, power
and influence in Britain because of a “profoundly unequal” education system,
Michael Gove warned today.

Children’s life chances are more likely to be linked to parental achievement and wealth in this country than almost any other developed nation, it was claimed.

The Education Secretary said the “sheer scale” of the dominance exercised by former private schoolboys pointed to a “deep problem” in British society.

In a speech, he said public schools were already significantly over-represented in politics, the judiciary, banking and FTSE 100 boardrooms.

But Mr Gove said there was also evidence of the creeping influence of independent education on industries dominated by young adults in their late teens and 20s – many of whom have only just left school.

He told how growing numbers of “new young stars all have old school ties”, citing sport, acting, comedy, music and the media as hotbeds of former private school pupils.

The comments come just weeks after a cross-party committee of MPs and peers warned that levels of social mobility in Britain had failed to improve since the 1970s.

In a report, the all-party Parliamentary group on social mobility said that half of all British children’s life chances were stubbornly linked to the success of their parents – more than in any other western country.

Addressing a conference at fee-paying Brighton College, East Sussex, Mr Gove said society had "failed to tackle” the problem with “anything like the radicalism required”.

"We live in a profoundly unequal society,” he said.

"More than almost any developed nation, ours is a country in which your parentage dictates your progress.

"Those who are born poor are more likely to stay poor and those who inherit privilege are more likely to pass on privilege in England than in any comparable country.

"For those of us who believe in social justice, this stratification and segregation are morally indefensible.”

Mr Gove said it was well-known that former pupils of independent schools were "handsomely represented" in the Supreme Court, the medical profession, in universities and the business world.

But he said the situation had “not changed” for the younger generation.

More than two-thirds of the current England cricket team is privately-educated, he said, compared with less than 10 per cent a generation ago.

Mr Gove said more than half of the England rugby union first team and British gold medallists at the last Olympics went to private school.

"It's not just in sport that the new young stars all have old school ties,” he added. "It's in Hollywood, Broadway and on our TV screens."

He insisted that Coalition reforms to the education system in England would help narrow the gap between private and state schools.

This includes more free childcare for under-fives, a new test to identify six-year-olds struggling with basic reading and tough new targets to intervene at primary and secondary schools failing to ensure pupils gain a decent grounding in English and maths.

Mr Gove added: "When more Etonians make it to Oxbridge than boys and girls on benefit, then we know we are not making the most of all our nation's talents.

"When hundreds of primary schools allow children to leave not able to read, write or add up properly, we know we are indulging in a form of national self-harm so profound as to be disabling."